Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online is the comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of “Gnosis and Western Esotericism” from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400 articles by over 180 international specialists, Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online provides critical overviews discussing the nature and historical development of all its important currents and manifestations, from Gnosticism and Hermetism to Astrology, Alchemy and Magic, from the Hermetic Tradition of the Renaissance to Rosicrucianism and Christian Theosophy, and from Freemasonry and Illuminism to 19thcentury Occultism and the contemporary New Age movement. Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism Online also contains articles about the life and work of all the major personalities in the history of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, discussing their ideas, significance, and historical influence.

The term Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose in the 1960s as referring to a highly eclectic mix of therapies, many of which were poised on the border between a psychological and a religious framework. They must be regarded as belonging to the history of gnosis and Western esotericism both for historical reasons and because of doctrinal similarities: historically, since by mediation of the mind cure or → New Thought movements, the intellectual foundations of the HPM may be found in the psycholog…

Huysmans, Joris-Karl (Charles-Marie-Georges), * 5 Feb 1848 (Paris), † 12 May 1904 (Paris) One of the most celebrated novelists of the 19th century, Huysmans was baptized with the names Charles-Marie-Georges, but later in life adopted “Joris-Karl” as his christian name in acknowledgement of his father's Dutch origins. A civil servant, in the 1870s he publishes his first novels, abandons his family's Roman Catholicism and becomes a protégé of Emile Zola (1840-1902), the patriarch of French literary positivism. In 1884, Huysmans publishes his most famous novel,
À rebours, and breaks…